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Finally,
Santa & Banta
can bow out!
International
stand-up
comedians
are the latest
new import
livening up the
evenings of the
urban Indians.
Anu Gulmohar
checks out the
scene…
the sunday indian 46 4 october 2009
l i f e s ta n d - u p c o m e dy

L
ife in an urban city in In-
dia is riddled with the ri-
diculous, the bizarre and
the absolutely inane hap-
penings… from waiting
all night for the power to
return, to stepping out of
one’s house in the morning to see
Previous page
the streets converted into mini Nar-
mada rivers, and some poor fella’s
(clockwise): Aron
Kader, Papa CJ, Sugar Mercedes swimming some feet away
Sammy
Below - (Left): Phil
from your door step! Or, on seem-
ingly better days, getting behind the
Nichol; (Right): Jarred wheel only to spend the next hour
Christmas in a jam so inexplicable, that it could
only have been caused by evil space
aliens! Or, on the best of days, when
neither rain nor jams threaten to
obstruct our driving pleasure,
swerving just in time to avoid a loi-
tering bull leisurely looking to con-
duct his morning business in the
centre of the road… It is only with a
robust sense of humour that we city
slickers get by an average day with-
out losing our minds. It is of little
wonder that we make laughter
shows on television such a success,
and that laughter yoga classes
abound in various parks. Interna-
tional stand-up comedians too are
now showing up in droves, as if in
moral support, to keep us in good
humour. Well, literally!
First, The Comedy Store of Lon-
don brought Sean Meo, Paul
Tonkinson and Ian Stone to perform
in Mumbai in June and now it’s go-
ing to continue with the tour in Oc-
tober where Jarred Christmas, Jeff
Innocent and Phil Nichol will be
performing at Gurgaon and Mum-
bai. The Comedy Store even plans to
open its first comedy club in India
by the year-end in Mumbai. Anoth-
er player introducing Indians to
stand-up comedy in the English lan-
guage is Percept D’Mark, who or-
ganised the Big Laugh Festival from
9th to 12th September across New
Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru at
which Sugar Sammy, Aron Kader,
Papa CJ performed. And even
though the tickets for these shows
are not priced cheap, people in hun-
dreds have been flocking to the ven-
ues for a light evening of laughter
and jokes.
Only for adults, stand-up comedy
acts might make a conservative av-
erage Indian a little uncomfortable,
for they don’t just stand there and
belt out jokes and caustic observa-
tions, but happily pick on the audi-
ences too! Only the courageous
should hazard sitting in the front
row! Papa CJ explains, “In a new
country, when you start this, they
will wonder – ‘what is this’? By the
second time, they’ll be ‘aahh, I see
what’s going on here’, and then they
start enjoying it. What’s interesting
is the only way to know where the
line is to cross it, and each time you
cross the line it goes just a little bit
further.” So, at his show in Delhi, a
father and son who had come alone
for the show were two of his victims,
while Sugar Sammy happily picked
at a sardarji sitting all by himself at
the corner of the auditorium – in
the front row. And there were more.
But are we Indians ready to laugh at
ourselves or better still, stomach
‘non-veg’ jokes?
“I did a show at Chandigarh Golf
Club and these hard core ‘commit-
tee member’ types were sitting on
the front row, and I was doing some
filth, and then some guy caught hold
of the promoters and said you better
stop all this or we’re going to kill
you! There were like 300-400 peo-
ple, so I asked the audience ‘does
anyone have a problem’? One sard-
arji said, “This is against Indian cul-
ture.” So I asked how many here
would want me to give a censored
version of the show? That one guy
had his hand up. Then I said give
me a cheer if you want the uncen-
sored version of the show. 400 peo-
ple went ‘heyyy’!” narrates Papa CJ.
The comedians have to balance on a
tight-rope, for it takes very little to
ruffle the feathers of some Indians.
“As long as it’s done with a certain
elegance, where it’s not demeaning
but friendly. When friends hang out
together, they make fun of each
other and everyone knows that
they’re just all joking around – as
long as you have that sort of tone,
people take it very, very well,” says
Sugar Sammy.
The international artists are mod-
ifying their material to suit Indian
“The
tastes, so while Sugar Sammy took
plenty of digs at the Punjabis in Del-
only way to
hi, he avoided the same when per- know where
forming in Mumbai. Though that
doesn’t mean that we’ll be deprived the line is to cross
of international content, like Aron
Kader explains, “The material that
it, and each time
works in United States, will work you cross the line
here, and it will work in Dubai and
it will work in Beirut, because com-
it goes just a
edy is universal. Once you’ve cap- little bit
tured something at the core of hu-
manity, everybody laughs.” further”
The folks bringing in all this in-
ternational talent are also looking to
find and groom Indians doing com-
edy in English. All of this activity
not just gives India better options of
unwinding but also to develop its
own English comedy scene – giving
us more variety than just Vir Das or
Cyrus Broacha, who are fantastic
and not to be underestimated
though. “There is very little variety
in our comedy; it’s still the same old
puns and all that. There is a huge va-
riety of things happening abroad,
mockumentaries, sketch comedies,
stand-up comedy, which still have to
come into India. Hopefully, we’ll all
open up and things will start com-
ing in,” comments Cyrus Sahukar,
who since several years has been en-
tertaining us with his comic acts.
What we can be sure of is that the
stage has been set, and it’s time to
stop taking ourselves too seriously
and stand up and cheer for the new
wave in Indian entertainment.

Can I be the next stand-up comedian? learn a lot more from a bad if one has the “willingness,
gig than a good gig.” While inclination to want to be

I
f you’ve always been a
prankster, if you’ve been
an absolute nuisance to
everybody and yet have
gotten your way out of
scolding sessions because of
your sheer wit and intelli-
gence, then the chances of
you being a natural comic
artist are strong! In 2008,
Aron Kader became the first
person to conduct comedy
classes in the Middle East.
Says Aron, “Mostly, comedy is
about teaching people how
to be themselves. The more
yourself you are, the more
unique you are, the more
captivating you are to an
audience.” Says Papa CJ, “You
can learn some of the tools
and tricks, and the more you
perform, the better you get.
There’s no real theory to it.
The more you perform, the
more situations you get
used to dealing with. You
Sugar Sammy knew he
wanted to be a comedian
when he was just 8, Papa CJ
went to Oxford, did an MBA,
and worked for 5 years as a
management consultant be-
fore he realised that his true
calling was stand-up come-
dy! Like Sugar Sammy says,
funny and poke fun at
things,” stand-up comedy
could very well be what you
want to do for the rest of
your lives! And with the
scene livening up in India,
you’re bound to now find
plenty of opportunities to
explore your talent too!